


Juniper

by Galrafloofandlove



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood, Fix-It of Sorts, Hanahaki Disease, M/M, Mentions of Shiro/Curtis - Freeform, Past Allura/Lance (Voltron), Post-Canon, Post-Season/Series 08 Finale, Vomiting, Well vomitting flowers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-16
Updated: 2019-01-16
Packaged: 2019-10-11 07:47:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17442824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Galrafloofandlove/pseuds/Galrafloofandlove
Summary: There’s always been a ticking timer in the back of his mind.A timer counting down to the day his time runs out, a timer counting down to when he’s waited too long.And one day, it went off.It went off...so, so loud.The day he got the call of the engagement broke his heart- but it also gave him a numbing sense of happiness. Shiro was finally happy. He had finally put the war behind him and fell in love with someone.That’s all he’d ever wanted, truthfully. His intentions from the day he met Shiro, from the day Shiro handed him that card as an invite to the Garrison, was to keep him safe. To make sure he was happy. To repay him for how much he saved Keith from the darkest part of his life.His intentions were never to fall head over heels with his best friend.





	Juniper

**Author's Note:**

> *takes a swig of wine* 
> 
> So how about season 8, amite? 
> 
> This fic has been my child for over a month, but medical issues got in the way of me posting it, as well as various deadlines. 
> 
> But here it is, is all its glory. 
> 
> Unbeta'd, there's gonna be mistakes in here. 
> 
> As always, enjoy.

There’s always been a ticking timer in the back of his mind. 

A timer counting down to the day his time runs out, a timer counting down to when he’s waited too long. 

And one day, it went off. 

It went off...so, so loud. 

The day he got the call of the engagement broke his heart- but it also gave him a numbing sense of happiness. Shiro was finally happy. He had finally put the war behind him and fell in love with someone. 

That’s all he’d ever wanted, truthfully. His intentions from the day he met Shiro, from the day Shiro handed him that card as an invite to the Garrison, was to keep him safe. To make sure he was happy. To repay him for how much he saved Keith from the darkest part of his life. 

His intentions were never to fall head over heels with his best friend. 

The wedding was beautiful. It had been perfectly crafted by everyone at the Garrison, from decorations to the lovely garden venue overlooking a peaceful wildlife valley to the planning that made sure every detail was perfect. Even Lance had found time to leave the farm and help with planning. He told them he wanted to help plan, and maybe, just maybe, he could pretend it was his own. He could pretend he got the chance to marry the woman he loved. 

The Universe was cruel to them, it seemed. 

Shiro had invited him to be his best man. 

He politely declined. 

Keith wasn’t sure he could endure that. 

He wasn’t sure he could survive the wedding at all, let alone be one of the major parts of the elaborate display of affection between the man he loved, and the man Shiro loved so dearly.

He’d never even met the dude before the reception in one of the Garrison’s conference halls. 

He was sitting alone at the paladins’ table, while Pidge and Hunk happily danced around like Keith didn’t feel like he was going to throw up his internal organs at seeing the ring on Shiro’s finger glisten in the light. There's the feeling of something rising up in his throat, but the emotional pain of it all dulls the sharp pangs through his chest and lungs. 

“Hey man.”  
The familiar voice startled him. 

Lance had been quieter after Allura's death, running away to a farm in the middle of nowhere and living the life he wished he could've lived with his one true love. His family had been the victim of an attack by a group against the coalition a year ago. He’d lost more than any of them, yet he still tried to be upbeat and happy in the face of despair. He still cared for the rest of the paladins like his family. They were all he had left. 

The baby blue marks under his eyes only further added to the pain, not only for Lance, but for the rest of the team as well. Without Allura, Shiro wouldn't be waltzing in the gentle moonlight. Without Allura, they would’ve never been able to help the save universe alongside her.

“You feeling okay?” Lance asked, sitting in one of the shitty metal chairs next to Keith’s own metallic prison, the shackles of his hidden love holding him down. Lance set down his plastic cup filled to the brim with some sort of weird alcohol punch combination on the pristine white, cotton tablecloth. It looked like snow, save for the dirty plates and utensils from the dinner earlier.  
Keith tried to swallow the lump in his throat, only for bile to rise up to his mouth.  
“Y-yeah. I'm fine.” It came out more hoarse and squeaky than Keith intended. Like he was a little boy before going through puberty instead of a full grown twenty six year old. He choked down the vomit that was sitting in his mouth, the aftertaste leaving his stomach churning.  
“You sure? You look really pale.” Lance inquired, his forehead starting to crease with worry.  
“I told you. I'm fine.” Keith insisted, feeling another ball of what felt like dried mucus rise up in his throat. He tried to swallow it down, to no avail. “I just have to go to the bathroom.” He decided on impulse as his breathing started to slow, subconsciously panting in an attempt to get air in and out between whatever was stuck in his airway. He stood up quick, making his vision turn hazy and losing his footing. 

“Hey, hey.” Lance was steadying him with an arm around Keith's waist. “You need to lay down.”  
Tears started to form in Keith's eyes as the thing in his throat pushed further up, and before he knew it he was doubled down on the floor, hacking his lungs out as all other senses aside from taste left him in an instant. 

He felt all the eyes in the room on him, all the light and heat bathing him in the public spotlight, but he couldn't find time to care between the warm liquid spilling past his parted lips and a bitter taste filling his mouth as a crumpled, bloody bud left his mouth and landed in the mix of vomit, blood and spit in the puddle below him, allowing him to breath once again. The sharp, needle-like pain was still present in his chest, however. It felt like the time he had strep throat, but somehow ten times worse. 

His other senses came roaring back to him, hitting him all at once like a trainwreck straight to the brain. 

“Give him some space!” He heard Lance yell above him, while soft murmurs erupted from the crowd of guests.  
He was keenly aware of what had just happened- he had just coughed up enough blood to form a puddle the size of a small frisbee.  
And within that puddle laid a small, circular flower, its delicate petals crinkled and the outside drenched in a thin layer of his own blood. 

“You okay, Keith?” Lance was knelt down next to him, dotting a pure white fabric napkin on his chin where some blood had dripped.  
Keith didn't respond, couldn’t respond, he could only snatch the flower bud out of the puddle of his own bodily fluids, staining his fingernails and the palm of his hand a light red, almost pink color. He made a definite attempt to stand on his own, only to fall down on his knees once again. His strength was completely drained, brains turned to mush thanks the lost of blood and the increasing trouble he had letting air into his lungs even with the flower lodged out from his throat. 

“Take it easy, buddy.” Lance said calmly, holding his hand out to help Keith stand.  
Keith flinched as he felt his lungs pulse within him, like something was wrapped around the organ and squeezing tightly.  
He hesitantly took Lance’s hand in his, carefully making sure the flower bud was still within his balled up fist in his other hand.  
“C’mon. I’ll drive you back to the farm. You can rest there for a while.” Lance said so quietly that only Keith could hear as he helped the former black paladin weekly limp along to the parking lot.  
“S-iro.’ Keith managed to use his voice, just barely, as his head felt dizzy and the world underneath him was spinning.  
“I’ll let him know you weren’t feeling well. You were here for a while, and that’s all that matters to him.” Lance pushed the double doors of the conference building open, exposing them both to the cool air of nightfall.  
If I even matter to him at all anymore, Keith thought as Lance helped him into the back of Lance’s shitty red pickup truck, buckling him into the passenger seat before moving to the driver’s side and getting seated himself. 

Lance rummaged through the compartment between the two front seats for a plastic bag, finding one a few minutes later and throwing it in Keith’s direction. Since the war had ended, Lance had turned unorganized and mostly out of touch with the others except for their annual meet-ups, which even Keith made an effort to attend. Allura’s death had left a deep hole in Lance’s heart none of the paladins thought would ever repair.  
“I don’t care if you end up throwing up, but just try to empty it out into the bag.” Lance slammed the lid of the compartment closed and started to drive away. Keith just continued to hold the bloodied flower in his fist, his other hand gripping the flimsy handles of the plastic bag. 

Turning out of Garrison property, Lance stayed silent, keeping the radio down low playing whatever shitty pop music was the most popular in the galaxy at that given hour. Keith stared out the slightly tinted window, eyes tracing every vehicle that sped past their own.

It wasn’t until Lance turned off the highway and onto an exit leading them into the country that either one of them spoke.  
“What even happened?” Lance asked, turning the volume of the radio down to zero.  
“Nothin’” Keith slurred his words, growing tired as the floaty feeling of blood loss slowly faded away. His breathing was returning to normal, his stomach settling. The only pain remaining was a sore, acute ache in the back of his throat, like pins and needles were stuck on the skin of his airway.  
“That wasn’t “nothing”, Keith.” Lance turned into an empty parking lot of some random diner, which was seemingly closed. It probably was, considering it was a quarter to 10 at night. “You don’t just cough up blood for nothing.” The truck came to an abrupt stop in a parking spot near the front of the restaurant.  
Keith stayed quiet.  
“What did you ever throw up? You didn’t even eat dinner.” Lance questioned, and Keith just crinkled the handles of the plastic bag under his death grip.  
“I said it’s nothing.” He insisted. “Just some Galran flu, I guess.”  
“That doesn’t answer my question.” Lance pushed. “Look, I care about you Keith. You and the paladins are all I have left. I can’t lose another member of my family.”  
“You won’t.” A wave of guilt overcame him. If only the coalition had caught onto the attack sooner, Lance would still have his mother, father, sisters, brothers, niece and nephew-  
“I coughed up a flower. Like I said, some weird Galran flu.” Keith extended his arm and uncurled his fist, so that the flower was sitting in the palm of his blood-stained hand.  
Since some of the blood had moved from the flower’s petals to Keith’s skin, he could vaguely tell the color- a gray, pale cyan bud with rounded petals. The bud still had one leaf attached to the base, the rest cut off and probably stuck in his throat. The leaf was prickly with microscopic needles sewed into it, poking small holes into his flesh where tiny beads of blood were forming.  
Lance looked closely at it, eyes widening from shock.  
“I think…” He poked at the flower with his index finger, causing one of the sharp needles to bury itself deeper into Keith’s skin as he held back a wince. “...I think it’s a Juniper flower.” Lance observed. “Looks like one, at least.”  
Lance roughly plucked the bud from his palm, ripping the thorn-like needle from his skin, causing a sharp pain radiating from his palm. He couldn’t stop the gentle cry that escaped from his lips as the pain disappeared just as fast as it came.  
Lance threw the bud into an empty cup holder underneath the dashboard, turning the key in the slot and starting the truck back up.  
“You can sleep at my place until you get better. I’ll contact Pidge in the morning and have her look up whatever disease this is.” The former blue paladin pulled out of the parking spot and back onto the road, following another exit further into the middle of nowhere. 

~~~~~~  
“Here. This should help with your throat.” Lance handed him a steaming white mug, decorated at the bottom and top with printed on candy canes.  
It was a quarter to one am before they finally came back to Lance’s farmhouse, and it took nearly 20 minutes for Keith to get settled. Not because of him, Keith would have gladly just slept on the couch with nothing else, but Lance insisted on covering him with multiple layers of fuzzy blankets of various colors, getting boxes of tissues to put on the coffee table, and pouring multiple different types of soup into thermoses, and setting them next to the tissues under coasters. The TV was playing some sort of Galran sitcom, and Keith could vaguely understand what was going on based on his limited knowledge of the Galran language.  
“Thanks.” Keith rasped out, his voice strained and throat aching from another hacking cough just a few minutes ago that he thankfully directed into the bucket by his side. This time, the cough hadn’t produced a flower, only mucus mixed with a few drops of blood, a few prickly leaves floating to the top of the disgusting mixture.  
He took the porcelain mug in his hands, having wrapped the palm with tiny pin-pricks in white gauze Lance insisted he use. The outside of the mug was nearly boiling, the liquid contents inside a dark yellow, with tiny bits of grainy brown floating to the top. The string of a tea bag was hanging off the edge, A few slightly melted ice cubes poised onto the surface of the hot drink, slowly thawing away in the intense heat of the liquid.  
“It’s my Mamá's secret recipe.” Lance explained. “She always made it when I got strep throat, which is more often than I'd like to admit.” Lance let out a gentle, airy laugh before his tone turned somber.  
“I...found the recipe in her pile after…” He trailed off, looking like he was holding back excessive amounts of tears.  
“I'm...sorry.” Keith frowned, leaning back up against the couch pillows and attempting to take a sip out of the still steaming mug.  
“Don't be.” Lance responded, almost as if on reflex like he hadn't actually processed anything from his family's passing yet. 

Lance left for his own bed once the mug cooled down enough and Keith gave a satisfied hum of approval.  
Keith watched the sitcom for a while, understanding the bare bones of the story. It was of a wife and a husband struggling to have a child, and in this episode they were preparing to adopt a young girl.  
Keith, despite throwing up petals every few minutes, ended up falling asleep happily.  
Maybe Shiro could be that husband, with his husband, adopting a young girl. He’d be an amazing parent, all and all, giving the child all of his love.  
A child deserved that. Keith wasn’t going to ruin that for them. He couldn’t tell Shiro his feelings, because maybe this marriage will result in something amazing, even if it’s only for one person. 

Keith could live with the pain if he believed that. 

~~~~~~~

The next day, Keith was taking a late afternoon nap while Lance called Pidge, who had researched last night to try and find whatever illness Keith was sick with. 

Keith awoke later that evening around dinnertime. There was an overwhelming smell of some sort of fish, and Keith heard grease bubbling as sat up.  
A telenovela was playing on the TV, and Lance was singing along to the theme without any mistakes.  
“Good evening, sleepyhead.” Lance placed a sizzling plate of something breaded with a side of some sort of vegetable stew on the coffee table.  
“Hey.” Keith grumbled, rubbing his eyes as he adjusted to the light.  
Lance sat down next to Keith with another plate in his hands, fork in his mouth as he took another green bean and brought it to his lips.  
“So, I talked with Pidge.” Lance’s tone turned somber out of nowhere, lips curving down in a gentle frown as he put down his forks and plate on his lap.  
“You were right. It is a Galran disease. Hanahaki.” Lance spoke with a special accent on the last word.  
“Yeah. So I’ll be fine in a few days.” Keith grabbed the remote and muted the T.V. so he could better hear Lance. 

Lance bit the inside of his cheek.  
“No.” He said slowly, removing the plate from his lap and down on the table, having only eaten a few green beans at most. “Actually, no.”  
“What do you mean no? If it was something deadly Pidge would’ve called my mom and she would be here by now.” Keith put up the illusion of being unmoved, but he was actually terrified. If he survived saving the Universe but some Galran flu was what actually killed him…  
“You can save yourself right away.” Lance informed. “Just tell Shiro you love him.”  
Keith threw up into the bucket at his side, flowers falling from his lips like a waterfall at the mention of the name. 

Lance held his hair back as he did, letting Keith hack out the flowers without refusal.

“What-what the fuck do you mean?!?” Keith questioned in a post-vomit state of pure haze and confusion.  
Lance cleared his throat- showing off, Keith thought to himself- before he explained himself.  
“Hanahaki is a disease that spawns from unrequited love. The only way the vines will untangle themselves from the lungs is if you confess, or if the flowers are removed surgically. But the surgery also removes all memory of the person you loved, and there's a major side effect where you lose all emotion all together.” Lance said with a sorrowful look in Keith's direction. “A few months after the first flower leaves the lips, the victim will die by choking on their own blood or suffocation if left untreated.”  
Keith stayed silent, quietly pondering his options. 

He couldn't confess- Shiro was happy with his new husband. And he thought back to that sitcom and how happy the couple looked with their new bundle of joy- he just couldn't do it. 

Then it came to surgery. All memory of Shiro would just vanish…  
He quickly threw that option in the trash. 

The only thing remaining was death. 

He would've just let death take him, if he knew it wouldn't take a major toll on Lance. He'd lost everything- Allura, his family- he couldn't lose someone else. 

Death wasn't an option either. 

“I understand you need some time. Just... keep me updated. And please, please Keith I beg you, don't wait until it's too late.” Lance spoke quietly, picking up his plate again as it started to grow cold. 

Keith sat in silence, weighing his options as he watched the sun set outside the small window above the kitchen stove. 

~~~~~

He left the next day. 

He had missions to do at the Blade, places to see, people to save. People far, far away from here, people who didn’t know his issues and never will. People who didn’t know that vines were tangled in his lung, cutting off his breathing at the worst of times. 

He cut ties with Earth. 

He cut ties with his friends, if he could even call them that anymore. He didn’t contact them, didn’t check to see if they had contacted him. He needed to be alone. Maybe, then, when he died, it’d be less sorrow dumped on them. Maybe they won’t even notice. That’s the goal, anyway. 

Death was his best option, he decided that night. Confessing was completely out of the question, and he couldn’t live without the memories of Shiro. That would hurt more than the flowers inside his throat ripping away at the soft tissue there. 

It grew incredibly worse after nearly a decaphoeb passed since Shiro’s wedding, since the last time he spoke with Lance, the last time he saw Shiro’s radiant smile outshine everything in that shitty reception.  
He had kept it hidden, excusing himself from missions and meetings more and more as time went on. But nobody knew. His mother was usually away, which was a relief. He loved Krolia, but she would realize something was wrong. At least none of the blades knew Keith well enough. They thought that was just his personality, standing up abruptly from meetings and storming out the door.  
But it was getting impossible to hide, impossible to live through. He always tasted nothing but blood as his tissue was ripped apart by prickly thorns, his breathing slow and heart racing when he felt another bundle of blooms work their way up his esophagus. 

One day, only a few movements after the one decaphoeb anniversary of when he found out he had hanahaki, he wakes up in a cold sweat and hurls full stems of unbloomed buds and flowers into the galra equivalent of a toilet.  
His throat feels like it’s going to collapse, there’s blood dripping down his chin, and his head feels faint. 

He lets Kolivan know he’s taking a sick leave for a while, then locks himself in his bedroom on the base. 

This is it. 

He’s reached the killing stage of hanahaki. 

~~~~~~

His floor is filled with the dull periwinkle blooms, sitting in puddles of blood. 

There’s a few flowers stuck in his airway, muscus and blood piled up and preventing any holes for air to pass through. 

He can’t breathe. He’s suffocating. 

He thought juniper flowers were supposed to be beautiful, be some amazing miracle, but everytime Keith looks at them it makes him sick, vomiting another clump of the little devil flowers, held together like glue by his blood. 

He lays his head back on the fluffy pillow far too large for him. 

He holds his hands over his heart, feeling his heart slow. 

“I love you, Shiro.” 

He lets quiet, strained words fall from his lips, weak as shadows overtakes him. 

“I will always love you.” 

His vision dims. 

He faintly hears somebody screaming, a familiar voice yelling something, alarmed.  
He lets a smile settle on his lips as he slips into darkness. 

~~~~~~~

There’s a gentle humming as he comes to. 

Is he dead? Is this the afterlife? Is this the place in the clouds his father always spoke of? 

“-eith?” 

A soft voice whispers, somewhere in the wind. 

All he sees is darkness as the voice is saying something else he can’t decipher. 

“-ear me?” The voice cuts in, louder than before, no doubt trying to speak over the humming of...whatever was humming. He can’t seem to find the energy to care. 

“Keith!” 

He’s jolted out his floating headspace by a scream of his name. A bright, purple light invades his vision as soon as he comes back to reality, a gloved hand forcing his eyelids open and moving the light directly in his eyes. His body is stiff, so stiff he can’t even squirm out of the light’s heat. 

“His pupils are dilated, heartbeat is increasing.” A mechanical like female voice reports, like she’s on autopilot.  
“Thank you, Una. That will be enough.” A deeper voice speaks this time, still female but with more authority than the previous. The light is taken out of his view, only to be replaced by a larger one being switched on overhead.  
“Keith.”  
The same voice that screamed and woke him up speaks again, quieter as a hand squeezed around his own.  
“It’s going to be okay.” The voice assures, and Keith’s mind finally registers it as the voice of his mother.  
He tries to speak, but his throat is raw and sore and there’s something strapped behind his head and secured around his nose and mouth and he can’t make any noise.  
“It’s to help you breathe.” Krolia explains as she notices his attempt to talk and the way his eyes tilted down to see a clear dome around his nose and down to his chin.  
“I can remove it, Keith.” The woman who had pushed the other medic away came into view as she spoke, holding a syringe in her hand that she set down on a metal tray on the edge of the medical bed Keith was laying upright on.  
He gave a weak nod as she pulled the mask down, the straps now resting on the back of his neck and the mask itself on his chest.  
He took in a gulp of air as soon as it was lifted, trying to adjust back to breathing on his own.  
The medic picked up a tablet, looking to Krolia with a heavy sigh.  
“When did you find out?” The medic asks, and now that Keith’s eyesight has cleared up from the haze, he recognizes her, silky black hair tied into a braid tucked under a lab coat, indigo, wolf- like ears twitching every few ticks.  
‘W-what?” Keith chokes out, finally getting used to the air around him, getting used to his surrounds.  
“When did you first find out about the hanahaki, Keith?” The medic- Xaphe, Keith’s brain matches face to name from his past visits to the medbay when he was first starting out as a blade.  
“Uh...like, a decaphoeb ago?” Keith says, the soreness in his throat making itself present above all else. 

Xaphe’s eyes widen in some sort of mixture of shock and fear.  
“Keith, I’m afraid you need to make a decision that doesn’t end in your passing, immediately.” She speaks with a renewed sense of urgency, clanging various medical tools on the tray to rearrange them as quickly as possible.  
“Keith, I can get Shiro here in a less than a quitant.” Krolia informs gently, still holding his hand in hers. At this point, he can’t even be surprised in the fact that Krolia knows who he’s throwing flowers up for. He’s too weak to care about anything anymore.  
The name sends him into a coughing fit, and he feels vines constricting his airways as blood-stained flowers fall out of his mouth with every hack.  
“N-no.” He protests once he can finally breathe again, Xaphe helping him lay back down with a hand on the small of his back. “J-just r-remove them.” His voice is shaking with the aftershocks of his coughing fit.  
“Keith.” Krolia’s eyes are filled with sorrow, looking down at him like he’s already dead. “Are you sure?”

Is he? If the flowers are removed, he’ll never remember Shiro again. Everything they’d been through, everything he did for Keith, everything Keith did for him. The story behind his scar will hold no meaning to him, the story of Voltron will just be a another dull part of his life when Shiro is erased.  
But that image of the orphaned child comes up again, the child Shiro can raise, the child that won’t have to remember a childhood where they were alone.  
The image of Shiro’s smile at the wedding stings in the back of his mind. 

He’s happy with his husband.  
He can make others happy.  
A single tear falls from his eye, the warm droplet staining his cheek as it flows. 

“I’m sure.” He says with a weak, somber smile in his mother’s direction.  
Krolia just frowns as Xaphe starts to prepare for the surgery. 

Not long after, Xaphe moves the mask back up to his nose and mouth.  
“Breathe in. This will put you under.” She commands, her mouth now covered by a surgical mask. 

Keith obeys, and a drug-induced haze soon overtakes him 

Goodbye Shiro, he thinks as he closes his eyes, welcoming the darkness with open arms. 

I love you.

~~~~~~

He comes to with a loud gasp. 

There’s shuffling around him, the familiar breathing mask being tugged away as he feels his chest burning, like somebody was piercing him right through the heart. 

“Keith.” 

The voice is soft, luring him back to reality. It sounds like…

Like…

“Shiro, hurry.” Krolia pushes. 

Shiro. 

Wait. 

He…knew Shiro, He remembered his voice. 

He remembered everything. 

The hoverbike races they shared before sunset at the Garrison, the Kerberos launch. He remembered the year he spent looking for Shiro, remembers finding him. Remembers finding him in the pod, floating out in space.  
He remembers falling into the open void with him. 

“I love you.”  
He dreams that Shiro said it, said those three words that would have made Keith break down in tears of pure joy. 

The pain returns, sharp needles scathing the inside of his throat, a large, curved object rising up his esophagus. 

His eyes bolt open as he retches. 

Long, prickly stems fall from parted lips, landing on his lap, protected by a blanket. 

His throat is raw, tissue burning with every sharp stalk that rips through him. 

There’s a strong hand on his back, patting it gently and rubbing soothing circles as he expels everything left in his lungs. 

He falls back on soft sheets after he finishes hacking. 

He breathes freely for what feels like the first time in forever. 

He weakly opens his eyes, and sees sliver looking back at him.  
He sees Shiro looking back at him. 

He jolts upright, his limbs stinging with such a sudden motion. 

Shiro’s just giving him a warm smile, although Keith can see that his eyes are red and puffy and his cheeks are stained with dried tear tracks. 

He’s confused beyond belief. This must be some sort of increible dream. 

But right now, a strong hand is holding Keith’s own limp hand, caressing the skin in between fingers and he can breathe without trouble again and it just feels so good to lay back down, close his eyes and drift back to sleep. 

~~~~~~

As it turns out, it wasn’t a dream at all. 

It was real. 

He woke up the next morning with his head on Shiro’s chest, laying in bed with him in nothing but a tank top and shorts, feeling Shiro’s heart beat and listening to the beautiful rhythm. 

Shiro explains everything over a breakfast in the base, which mainly consisted of different types of meat the Galra considered breakfast food. 

A few phoebs along, Shiro filed for divorce. He and his husband ended on good terms, apparently, but they just wanted different things out of life.  
He realized just a few quitants later that he loved Keith, and Lance told him about the hanahaki.  
He arrived in the medbay after Keith fell under, just as Xaphe had finished making the incision down his chest.  
Once Shiro said he was going to confess to Keith, she worked on stitching it back up, which was the initial pain he felt in his chest when he awoke.  
The cut would apparently scar over, Shiro informed with a frown.  
The stems he coughed up were the stems of the juniper that were previously tangled in his lungs, having released themselves after Shiro’s confession came. 

And that lead them back to Keith’s room, eyelids heavy as he cuddled next to Shiro on his bed. 

“I’m sorry,” Shiro blurted out suddenly, breaking the silence like a hammer on glass.  
“For what?” Keith mumbled as he buried himself in Shiro’s chest.  
“For making you hurt.” Shiro said in a somber tone.  
“S’not your fault.” Keith assured as he felt tiredness overtake him like a cloud blocking the sun.  
“Are you sure?” Shiro’s voice sounded broken, like he was going to cry any second.  
“Mhm.” Keith slurred, and Shiro pressed a kiss to the top of his head.  
“Alright, baby. Get some sleep now.” Keith’s heart fluttered in his chest at the use of the pet name, and Keith felt the broken pieces of his heart fall back in place. 

Because Shiro was here, and Shiro loved him, and he was alive. 

But most importantly, Shiro was happy. 

That’s all he ever needed, but knowing that he made Shiro happy was better than anything else in the universe.

Even hanahaki couldn’t tear them apart.

**Author's Note:**

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> [Tumblr](https://galrafloofandlove.tumblr.com)! || [Twitter](https://twitter.com/GalraFloof)


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